I know I should have started this blog a lot earlier when I decided to pick up running again as a New Year's resolution for 2013. Well, I didn't and thus I owe you some backstory:I used to run quite a lot when my first born child was 3 years old. When my second child was born 18 months later I got too busy to keep on running. At that time I ran 3 1/2 to 4 miles (the entire circumference of Roosevelt Island that was runnable back then - it shortened a bit over time) at least 5 times a week. Due to the lack of gadgets that were a) easily affordable and b) easily portable I never made the effort to figure out how long my runs were and how fast I actually ran. I did put in my fartleks already, though.
Fast forward more than six years. After getting in trouble with my wife I was finally convinced that I really should pick up some exercise routine again. She was right. I was closing in on 200 pounds at a height of 5' 11" and my food cravings were all over the place. I was also plagued by hip pain and was still recovering from a fracture of my right knee cap. A lot of excuses to not do anything drastic. But change I did (thanks, Spatz!) and I started a simple Couch-to-5k program that brought me back into running. Some short term health problems in February made me rest for a month but I kept on pushing forward. Then my employer sent out an e-mail inviting us to join the NYU run team for this year's JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge, a 5k race, and after thinking about it for a day or two I signed up. I did not complete a full 5k at this time and I had to pull a number out of thin air when I had to give my pace. I think I picked something like 10:00 minutes per mile. Pretty much the next day I just went for it and ran an entire 5k circuit. My pace was 8:24/mile. I was ecstatic. For somebody who didn't really run for many years I was surprised that I was able to run that distance rather easily and not as badly as I first thought.
